Sony Finally Nuked 1,200 Shovelware Titles and the 'Jumping Taco' is Dead
It looks like the golden age of buying a platinum trophy for ninety-nine cents is finally coming to an abrupt end.
I honestly thought this day would never come. If you have browsed the "New Releases" tab on the PlayStation Store in the last three years you have definitely seen the garbage I am talking about. It isn't just bad games. It is asset-flip nonsense like The Jumping Taco, The Jumping Sushi, and The Jumping Burger. These games exist for one reason only. They give dopamine-addicted trophy hunters a Platinum in five minutes. But it seems Sony has finally had enough of the clutter because they just pulled the plug on the king of shovelware.
The Great Shovelware Purge
Reports started popping up on X via RobThanatos and quickly moved to Reddit that the publisher ThiGamesDE has been completely wiped from the PlayStation Network. I checked it myself and the search results are empty. This isn't just a small slap on the wrist. We are talking about the removal of roughly 1,194 games. To put that insane number into perspective this company was statistically the 4th largest publisher on the entire platform. Let that sink in for a second. A company that copy-pastes a picture of a taco was competing for shelf space with Ubisoft and Capcom.
Who Was ThiGamesDE?
If you are a normal person who plays normal video games, you might not know the lore behind this specific publisher. ThiGamesDE is essentially the grandfather of the "press X to win" genre on PlayStation. While other publishers like Ratalaika Games at least tried to wrap their easy trophies in a playable platformer, ThiGamesDE stripped away the pretense of gameplay entirely.
The "Jumping" Empire
Their strategy was insultingly simple. They would take a piece of stock clip art, a taco, a burger, a pumpkin, a gingerbread man, and put it on a static background. Your job? Press the jump button. That is it. You press the button a few hundred times and the game rewards you with a Platinum trophy. They released these games in rapid succession, often dropping four or five variations in a single week.
Jumping Taco
Jumping Fries
Jumping Sushi
Jumping Wrap
They didn't just stop at food. They had holiday themes, random objects, and "Turbo" editions. It was a factory line of digital waste designed to exploit the trophy system's algorithm.
The Turbo Controller Economy
What made ThiGamesDE so successful wasn't just the price point. It was the mechanics. Trophy hunters realized they could buy these games for a dollar, plug in a controller with a "Turbo" function, and tape down the X button. You could literally walk away to make a sandwich and come back to a fresh Platinum trophy. ThiGamesDE knew this. They leaned into it. They weren't selling games; they were selling digital accolades to people with an addiction to the notification sound.
Why Is This Happening Now?
The timing here is interesting. Rumors are circulating that the big three platform holders are finally collaborating on new safety rules to tackle the influx of "AI slop" and low-effort shovelware. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have all been drowning in this stuff lately. It makes the storefronts look cheap and it makes finding actual indie gems a total pain in the ass. I assume Sony decided to make an example out of ThiGamesDE to show everyone else they aren't messing around anymore.
The Death of the Cheap Platinum
I have to admit I am enjoying the salt coming from a specific subset of the gaming community right now. There is a whole economy built around these games. People pay a dollar and press the 'X' button five hundred times to hear a ding sound. It is a sad state of affairs when your digital profile is padded with twelve variations of a jumping food item. With ThiGamesDE gone I hope this signals a return to quality control. If you want a Platinum trophy you should probably have to actually play a video game to get it.
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